Weave, Weave the Sunlight in Your Hair
by hakuen
Summary: Left or right, right or left... [written for AirgiodSLV for Yuletide 2018.]


_Left or right, right or left_  
 _Ladder wrought by fingers deft_

 _Right or left, left or right_  
 _Ladder woven out of..._

Frowning at the page, Alin tapped the back of his quill against his lips. The only part of this line that most versions he'd found agreed on was 'woven.' One said under, one over; three said 'out of.' In the end, he supposed, that part couldn't make too much of a difference.

"Where are you at now?" Val, who had sprawled all over the narrow, dusty bed the moment they'd barred the door, just gave a lazy smile in response to his glare. "Got that last one sorted yet?"

Another glare would do nothing, and Val did have a fair enough mind when properly motivated; he conceded that it was probably time to bring him in again. He read out what he had, adding, "So I'm not entirely convinced that's the line to begin with, but..."

"Mm." Val was silent for awhile, and Alin was more than content to let it be so; for some reason, one of the few times his mind was willing to relax was when Val was actively chewing on a problem that had already stumped him.

If he were to be completely honest, for the few moments he was able to let go and allow Val to take control of whatever was happening, it was a near-orgasmic relief. He'd never want to be a typical Lady's husband, told what to do and how for near every minute of his life — but, trusting Val as he did, a break from his own mind was a treasure these days.

Val stirred, sat up. His eyes were still far away, even darker than the thick locks of hair sticking out in odd directions (thanks to a too-tight green coif he'd had to ...borrow from a clothesline today). "Well — the obvious ones, light, sight, night." One lip was sucked briefly into his mouth, teeth denting the skin, and Alin found himself completely unable to look away. Then Val shook his head, and the tension beginning to build in Alin's body broke. "It could be a Malerrisi thing, hate to say..."

Alin grimaced. "Let's hope not."

"Maybe another word is missing, or substituted. Bright, height, alight, fight..." Now he was beginning to warm to the task, and suddenly glee lit his face. "Y'know what would be best of all, if it were Malerrisi?"

A wary squint, and slow go-ahead nod.

" _Spite._ "

It was impossible to hold back his groan. Val looked enormously pleased with himself.

"Think about it! Ladder woven out of spite. What could be better?"

Leaning over so far that his chair wobbled under him, he smacked Val's upper arm, all that he could reach.

"You love it, don't try that," Val was laughing as silently as he could since they weren't exactly supposed to be in this tucked-away attic room in Domburron, and it was hard for Alin to keep from mirroring him. "C'mere. This can wait 'til tomorrow, I can feel you getting flat."

And that was perhaps the oddest among several things they'd found after Alin had left his family on that awful Neversun night, finding Val purely by feel in the ridiculous Rising-affiliated bower in Combel some days later. Alin could orient himself to Val as surely as a compass rose swinging to north; Val couldn't find Alin physically, but always had a sense of where his mind was at. (Alin, being 16, sneered at emotions as a general policy, so preferred to label it this way.)

Alin grunted in reply, but after jotting down the last of his notes ( _not_ including the suggestion that it could be _spite_ , thank you, Val), laid down the pen and came to bed. It was still enough to make him wheeze sometimes just thinking of it, but he'd grown accustomed enough to sharing very close quarters with Val, even now that it had dawned on him that he didn't so much want to be with Val as to be _with_ Val.

The light snuffed out with a wave of his fingers, he leaned his back in to just touch Val's casually arranged arms.

As every other night since they'd first Laddered out of Combel together, it was perhaps a minute before Val slung one arm over him. Alin sighed, and slipped into sleep.


End file.
